RFE for NIW; Help please!

Y

yanl

Registered Users (C)
Hi, friends,
Here are what I got for the RFE. I need to prepare them in 40 days or so. Please give me some advice. Again my background are

--MS in statistics in USA ( my program was ranked within top 5 in USA)
--MS in neuroscience in my native country
--BS in biochemistry in my native country

Being a statistician for 4 years in a national childhood cancer study founded by National cancer institute (founded for 10 years already)

Some publications (but in most, I was a statistician, not the first author), some citations

INS letter and my proposed answers, any suggestion will be very appreciated.

“It is agreed that your field is one of substantial intrinsic merit and the results of the research being conducted would be national in scope. However, the following criteria have not been satisfied:

(1) Please submit evidence related to your ability to perform the duties of the proposed employment position. To be considered in the national interest you must make a showing significantly above that necessary to prove the prospective national benefit: required of all aliens seeking to qualify as “exceptional”;
--I sent about 15 letters including one from my supervisor and our division head which demonstrate this. Isn’t it enough? What else I can do to prove this?
--I may also say that I had double degrees. The knowledge of other sciences would be benifit for me to communicate with my non-statistician collgues

(2) You must persuasively demonstrate that the national interest would be adversely affected if a labor certification were required
-- Can I argue that I had more than 4 years experience in this study. I am very familiar with our data (which is huge) and all the net work. If they hire somebody who is OK for the minimum requirement of this job, given this person had same capability as I do, the study still has to waste lots of money for the training etc…

(3) You must establish your are not seeking national interest waiver based on a shortage of qualified workers
-- I was selected from more than 50 qualified candidates which my supervisor mentioned this in his letter. What else can I do?

(4) You must establish you have a past record of specific prior achievement with justifies projections of future benefit to national interest.
I can give numbers of studies (or papers) I involved in the past four years which shows the significant increasing over the years, and maybe citation too.
 
yanl said:
Hi, friends,
Here are what I got for the RFE. I need to prepare them in 40 days or so. Please give me some advice. Again my background are

--MS in statistics in USA ( my program was ranked within top 5 in USA)
--MS in neuroscience in my native country
--BS in biochemistry in my native country

Being a statistician for 4 years in a national childhood cancer study founded by National cancer institute (founded for 10 years already)

Some publications (but in most, I was a statistician, not the first author), some citations

INS letter and my proposed answers, any suggestion will be very appreciated.

“It is agreed that your field is one of substantial intrinsic merit and the results of the research being conducted would be national in scope. However, the following criteria have not been satisfied:

(1) Please submit evidence related to your ability to perform the duties of the proposed employment position. To be considered in the national interest you must make a showing significantly above that necessary to prove the prospective national benefit: required of all aliens seeking to qualify as “exceptional”;
--I sent about 15 letters including one from my supervisor and our division head which demonstrate this. Isn’t it enough? What else I can do to prove this?
--I may also say that I had double degrees. The knowledge of other sciences would be benifit for me to communicate with my non-statistician collgues

(2) You must persuasively demonstrate that the national interest would be adversely affected if a labor certification were required
-- Can I argue that I had more than 4 years experience in this study. I am very familiar with our data (which is huge) and all the net work. If they hire somebody who is OK for the minimum requirement of this job, given this person had same capability as I do, the study still has to waste lots of money for the training etc…

(3) You must establish your are not seeking national interest waiver based on a shortage of qualified workers
-- I was selected from more than 50 qualified candidates which my supervisor mentioned this in his letter. What else can I do?

(4) You must establish you have a past record of specific prior achievement with justifies projections of future benefit to national interest.
I can give numbers of studies (or papers) I involved in the past four years which shows the significant increasing over the years, and maybe citation too.
Click to expand...

_______________________MY reply follows__________________________

Although I am no expert, here are my thoughts...Answers follow your numbered issues:

(1) There is no minimum number of letters that you need to show. Conceivably, 15 letters are enough. But if all the letters come from your co-workers, colleagues, supervisors and managers the INS attaches very little value to this. You must also present 1 to 2 letters from independent witnesses who do not know you personally or have collaborated with you.

Also, single, double, triple degrees are not important. With one MS degree, you have already met the criterion for a person possessing an advanced degree. Others are redundant. Bear in mind, there are PhDs applying too.

(2) No. 4 years of experience is not an answer. You must demostrate that you are better than US workers who might be able to do your job with the same minimum qualifications and training. Your answer merely confirms that you are talented and the LC process was indeed created for people like you.

(3) If you show that then there is no reason for you not to go through LC. Infact LC process was created to demonstrate that there is indeed a shortage of qualified workers. If your supervisor mentioned that you were selected out of 50 qualified applicants then INS may reject your petition and say that you are ripe for LC. If the labor department is convinced of the 50 applicants and you were the best qualified, they will approve of LC.

(4) Citations are the only ones that are important. More citations, the better it is. Merely saying that you have authored articles that were published is not enough. Everybody does that. To show that you are exceptional, you need to provide evidence that your articles were exceptional enough that they are cited. Bear in mind, the older your published article is, the more citations INS will expect.

Hope this helps...
 
> (1) Please submit evidence related to your ability to perform the duties
> of the proposed employment position.

Another letter from your PI listing the requirements for the position vs the qualifications you have and attesting to the fact that he considers your quals as sufficient.


> To be considered in the national interest you must make a
> showing significantly above that necessary to prove the
> prospective national benefit: required of all aliens seeking to qualify
> as “exceptional”;

Also known as the 'EA through the backdoor' argument. NIW in and by itself doesn't require extraordinary abilities from the applicant, it just requires the result of waiving LC to be in the national interest. I ran accross this denial reason in some article by a NIW/EA lawyer reporting that apparently the service try to get people with this tactic (devoid of a legal basis of course).

> --I may also say that I had double degrees. The knowledge of
> other sciences would be benifit for me to communicate with my
> non-statistician collgues

Is it a neuro-oncology project you are involved in ? Otherwise I don't think they care too much about double triple quadruple degrees.

> (2) You must persuasively demonstrate that the national interest
> would be adversely affected if a labor certification were required

Common denial argument. There are three reasons they don't accept:
- LC would take too long
- there is a labor shortage
- this job is sooo important, only someone eligible for a NIW can perform it

> -- Can I argue that I had more than 4 years experience in this study.

I believe you can't use the fact that you have worked in a job before as an argument (they want to avoid that companies 'design' a job description to exactly fit ONE person only).

One tactic I have read before goes like this (letter from PI/dept. chair): 'This position is of critical importance for the project. 10 other researchers rely on our biostatisticians expertise in the design of their studies and the analysis of their data (see the following papers x,y,z). The minimum job requirement for this job is a masters in statistics. If we go through labor certification, we would have to give preferential treatment to ANY person with a statistics degree. Due to the critical importance of this position for a lot of the research in our department, ANY person with a statistic degree will not suffice but rather it is critically important to select the person with the BEST qualifications. BUT, on the other hand his position doesn't qualify as a teaching appointment and we therefore can't apply for 'special handling labor cert' for Mr X. As a matter of fact, 50 people with sufficient qualifications applied for the job but based on the importance of the position we decided to hire the most highly qualified individual (see below).

> (3) You must establish your are not seeking national interest
> waiver based on a shortage of qualified workers

Their argumen here would be: if that was the problem, why don't you apply for LC.

> -- I was selected from more than 50 qualified candidates which
> my supervisor mentioned this in his letter. What else can I do?

Another letter from your supervisor stating that they really really need the best person to do this job. That there were ample applicants but that your outstanding qualifications and track record guided the universities decision to hire you (quoting from the universities hiring/faculty appointment policies regarding the competitive process for appointments)

> (4) You must establish you have a past record of specific
> prior achievement with justifies projections of future benefit to
> national interest.

Letter from PI/dept chair detailing your publication record and how the publications you were involved in are either part of the project or relate to it. Also a statement that the study has been funded for 10 years and that it will continue to run for the forseeable future. Further outline how the research out of this project will impact the management of whatever cancer you are working on which strikes x number of children every year in all areas of the country.
 
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Dear Trojanblue,
Thank you for your advice. I really appeciate. I have a couple questions regarding your thread.
For (1): I worked for a national study in which 24 US and one Canadian children hospitals involved. Can I ask anybody who I don’t know personally but in one of these hospitals and knows our study? Somebody suggested that I need 10-12 letters from whom I don’t know, do I need that many? How about some letter from Europe researcher?
In your (2): Do you mean NIW or LC was indeed created for people who is talent?
For your (3): I am confused here. Do you mean it is not a good idea to say I was hired out of 50 applicants?
For your (4): How about the articles in the newspaper which mentioned our study?

Thanks,
yanl
 
Dear hadron,
Thank you very much for your comments. I saw lots of your postings at this website. You are an expert apprently. Here are some more questions for your reply,

" Also known as the 'EA through the backdoor' argument. NIW in and by itself doesn't require extraordinary abilities from the applicant, it just requires the result of waiving LC to be in the national interest. I ran accross this denial reason in some article by a NIW/EA lawyer reporting that apparently the service try to get people with this tactic (devoid of a legal basis of course)."

--So, may I ask if you have any good strategy for this? Can we just say in the statement that we are not applying “EA” but “NIW”


"Is it a neuro-oncology project you are involved in ? Otherwise I don't think they care too much about double triple quadruple degrees."

--Yes, I did some research about childhood brain cancer; they are on-going, I had a couple international conference abstract though, could that help?


Common denial argument. There are three reasons they don't accept:
- LC would take too long
- there is a labor shortage
- this job is sooo important, only someone eligible for a NIW can perform it
---- I understand the first two. But why the third one, how to argue that?


BUT, on the other hand his position doesn't qualify as a teaching appointment and we therefore can't apply for 'special handling labor cert' for Mr X. As a matter of fact, 50 people with sufficient qualifications applied for the job but based on the importance of the position we decided to hire the most highly qualified individual (see below).

---The problem was that I am not in a university, we don’t have teaching appointment, what else I can argue? I actually can go through LC if I want to, that just takes for ever.

Another letter from your supervisor stating that they really really need the best person to do this job. That there were ample applicants but that your outstanding qualifications and track record guided the universities decision to hire you (quoting from the universities hiring/faculty appointment policies regarding the competitive process for appointments)

--I’ve looked through the RECRUITMENT policy of our center, it did state that HR help to find “best fit the position description” and the PI interviews the top candidates, and screening and interviewing continue until an individual is chosen.
Will this help?

Thanks a lot,
yanl
 
yanl said:
Dear Trojanblue,
Thank you for your advice. I really appeciate. I have a couple questions regarding your thread.
For (1): I worked for a national study in which 24 US and one Canadian children hospitals involved. Can I ask anybody who I don’t know personally but in one of these hospitals and knows our study? Somebody suggested that I need 10-12 letters from whom I don’t know, do I need that many? How about some letter from Europe researcher?

---Common CIS argument has been that because the research project is extremely important and is national in scope does not automatically qualify a person working on the project for a NIW. The petitioner must show that he is applying for NIW based on his own accomplishments and not on the position sought. Independent researchers writing recos always helps. You merely have to substantiate the fact that they have never collaborated with you. European letter might help if he/she does not know you.

In your (2): Do you mean NIW or LC was indeed created for people who is talent?

--Yes. That is exactly the reason why LC process was created in the first place. NIW implies that you are way above others with similar minimum qualifications and this has to be demonstrated by your past achievements before the date of petition.

For your (3): I am confused here. Do you mean it is not a good idea to say I was hired out of 50 applicants?

--It might be a good idea. I just don't know. I am no expert in this. But CIS can claim that since 50 applicants were rejected, you are a prime case for LC.

For your (4): How about the articles in the newspaper which mentioned our study?

--Did these articles mention you by name? Were you a leading researcher or one of the principal investigators? If not, the arguments for point #1 still holds. Your project may be extremely important. But that does not offer a blanket waiver for LC to everbody who works on that project.

Thanks,
yanl
Click to expand...
 
> . I saw lots of your postings at this website. You are an expert
> apprently.

My experience with obtaining NIW is n=1. At the time, I did go through literature and AAO decisions on this class, I am not sure whether that qualifies as expert.

> --So, may I ask if you have any good strategy for this? Can we just
> say in the statement that we are not applying “EA” but “NIW”

Don't have a good rebuttal for that. But you will have to provide a more substantial answer than that.

> --Yes, I did some research about childhood brain cancer; they are
> on-going, I had a couple international conference abstract though,

I was asking about whether your CURRENT project is a neuro-oncology project.


> ---- I understand the first two. But why the third one, how to argue that?

These are the arguments they will NOT accept, hence there is no point in using them.


> ---The problem was that I am not in a university, we don’t have
> teaching appointment,

That is exactly what I meant. You are NOT eligible for 'special handling LC', therefore the service can't use it as an argument against your eligibility for NIW. (see, in a university setting they have the right to refuse people with the 'minimal qualifications' if it was a faculty position with a competitive search process)
 
hadron said:
> . I saw lots of your postings at this website. You are an expert
> apprently.

My experience with obtaining NIW is n=1. At the time, I did go through literature and AAO decisions on this class, I am not sure whether that qualifies as expert.
Click to expand...

Hadron, so when did you get your GC? Did you also go through EB2-NIW?
 
When I prepared for my petition, my boss also mentioned that my skill set was unique and rare to find among American. My lawyer edited it away because it indicated labor shortage. My boss was puzzled by this but finally accepted the change.
 
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